Arts & Culture | Theater

While Jews may not have a monopoly on suffering, they certainly wrote — or at least canonized — the book on it. The biblical story of Job has inspired artists throughout history, from the engraved illustrations of William Blake to the recent Coen Brothers film, “A Serious Man.”

Since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, people have celebrated changes of seasons with performances of festive music. In our own multi-faith culture, concerts that mark the beginning of winter typically feature a lot of Christmas carols, a few Chanukah songs, and a batch of tunes about snow. Now come Broadway stars Marc Kudisch and Jeffrey Denman in “Happy Merry Hanu-Mas,” which features a novel approach in which Jewish songs and blessings are interwoven with Christian music.

Leading the Passover seder each year is, for many Jewish men, a sign of their continuing vigor and prominence within the family. In Jennifer Maisel’s Off-Broadway play, “The Last Seder,” directed by Jessica Bauman, a patriarch’s impending slide into dementia signals that nothing, including their Passover observances, will ever be the same.

How terrifying to be a child prodigy, to possess stunning artistic skills without the emotional maturity to handle them. And then how bewildering to live in a community that frowns on these gifts and forbids their expression. In Aaron Posner’s “My Name is Asher Lev,” the absorbing but overly reverential take on Chaim Potok’s 1972 novel that opened last week at the Westside Theater, a young chasidic painter launches a career that puts him squarely at odds with his family and community.